So my players FINALLY learned I was using a "book" product for AoW


Age of Worms Adventure Path


Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

My group is done with 3 Faces, and just getting ready to start blackwall. Even with me having the magazine out behind the screen, showing them pictures right from the magazine, etc, etc. They just now realized I'm using a Dungeon Magazine adventure.

They learned when one of them was reading Dragon Magazine and came across a worm food column. When he read the words whispering Cairn, and Faceless one he about fell over dead! He immediatly went to our private message boards and screamed that he was on to something. Much panic and hysteria soon followed. :)

I was pretty amused that they finally learned that they were involved in something larger than my little campaign story about vengence for their dead mentor. I'm going to have to read my Dragon mag's to see if any spoiler info was given away. If so I will gleefully change things for the worse for anyone who tries to read ahead. DM's got to represent and all....

Thanks Paizo! AoW campaign is a great springboard and is doing a wonderful job of revitalizing my game.


While I'd told my group I was using published adventures from Dungeon, I sold it as a series of adventures I'd put together into a campaign. I didn't want them looking for the story plot too early, instead wanting them to realize there were bigger things afoot come Blackwall Keep or so when things start coming together.

I'd even had to explain Diamond Lake as a the generic Dungeon Magazine location where all their adventures are set to explain the detail of the setting in the mag and the number of setting-specific handouts I was using from the magazines.

Then one of my players accidentally catches the cover to one of the latest Dungeons on the shelf of his local game store. "Return to Whispering Cairn" it said and he realized there was something more going on. We're only a couple rooms into Faces of Evil but they've already started looking for campaign threads. Right now they're thinking it's all going to turn into a quest for the Rod of Seven Parts.

Ah well, you use published adventures you takes your chances.


I was real upfront about it - "If we're going to play, I've got to run this. I don't have time to create a new campaign. If you want to go online and look this stuff up, you can spoil the whole thing."

Fortunately, three out of the four are what you would call 'casual gamers' and are happy to be led around. The fourth has gotten some suspicious looks from me from time to time, but rarely.

The 'worst' was when one of my casual players came up with a prestige class involving being a member of a group called 'The Black Triad' right before we ran into the Ebon Triad. VERY suspicious looks there, but it turned out to be coincidence.


I let my players know ahead of time that I was running this from Dungeon.

If they're peaking into adventures they're doing a good job of hiding it when they play. However, it doesn't help when Dungeon puts "Doppelgangers and Death in the Age of Worms" on their cover.

Paizo, please try to keep Age of Worms a little more "low key". And stop with the cover art!


Takasi wrote:

I let my players know ahead of time that I was running this from Dungeon.

If they're peaking into adventures they're doing a good job of hiding it when they play. However, it doesn't help when Dungeon puts "Doppelgangers and Death in the Age of Worms" on their cover.

Paizo, please try to keep Age of Worms a little more "low key". And stop with the cover art!

I have to agree with the "low key" part. When my wife got the mail and saw the cover of the last issue with Ilthane on it, she asked if they were going to have to fight that. It clearly loks like the netrance to the Whispering Cairn they saw in the first adventure. I just told her that I hadn't looked at it yet so I couldn't be sure and left it at that.

Liberty's Edge

Yeah...its a little hard to not give away the farm when it's right there in front of them. But hopefully they will not want to spoil it for themselves. Tempation is a mutha' but I know I want to savor the flavor of this campaign for all it has....I really like how it all ties together and it also ties in with SCAP too!!!! KUDOS Pazio.....!!!!


I am running SCAP currently, but I have found it great fun to post the cover of the hardcover as the game begins (online game). One player has asked that I stop since he is afraid of the time he will have to face that... "THING!" It's great.

Since I have been able to do it since the beginning they have no idea when it is coming that they will have to fight the glabrezu, but they will be finding some details about it during the flood festival ball. I still think they will be shocked when the time comes.

I know this is AoW, but the effect is the same. I don't think movies are ruined by the previews (some comedies in which they show all the funny parts are the exception to that rule for me), though I am sure I will get some push back on that. I guess the cover is the same thing for me. I don't mind a little preview being thrown out there.

Sean Mahoney

Liberty's Edge

Tallknight1974 wrote:
Yeah...its a little hard to not give away the farm when it's right there in front of them.

Oh, but I LOVED that! The whole idea of putting a dragon on the cover, and running into it in the game... the players HAVE to think that this is what the scenario is about. I'd love to see the faces of the players who make that assumption, kill/evade/etc the dragon early on and then find that they've just STARTED the module! Heh. I think that's one of the most devious cover-art tie-ins ever.

On the other hand, the certain OTHER (the first module set in the Free City) was more than a bit annoying. There's no way of getting around it: that was a massive spoiler.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Now I'll be the first to admit that putting the word "doppelganger" on the cover may have been going a little too far... keep in mind that the cover is one of the best tools we have (if not THE best tool) to promote the magazine in bookstores and on magazine racks. Therefore, we tend to try to put the most exciting and interesting things from that issue on the cover. This practice will not change.

The analogy to movie trailers is a good one. Try to think of the cover images and blurbs as previews for adventures designed to build anticipation and excitement rather than spoilers.

Liberty's Edge

James Jacobs wrote:

Now I'll be the first to admit that putting the word "doppelganger" on the cover may have been going a little too far... keep in mind that the cover is one of the best tools we have (if not THE best tool) to promote the magazine in bookstores and on magazine racks. Therefore, we tend to try to put the most exciting and interesting things from that issue on the cover. This practice will not change.

The analogy to movie trailers is a good one. Try to think of the cover images and blurbs as previews for adventures designed to build anticipation and excitement rather than spoilers.

I wasn't saying don't advertise or anything close too it..I was just saying try not to spoil the adventure by giving away ALL the goods. I like the art work and style most of the time, but sometimes it almost screams to the players HEY GUESS WHAT YOU WILL BE FACING OFF AGAINST. I am just asking for a little more thought in NOT spoiling all the surprises in the adventure in the front page.....which in most of the covers you don't.

Frog God Games

Hey, it could be worse. Anyone else remember the green cow?


Greg V wrote:
Hey, it could be worse. Anyone else remember the green cow?

It was bad enough that the plot of the adventure was "Who's painting Farmer Brown's cows green." Answer: The leprechaun on the cover! D'oh!

Community / Forums / Archive / Paizo / Books & Magazines / Dungeon Magazine / Age of Worms Adventure Path / So my players FINALLY learned I was using a "book" product for AoW All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Age of Worms Adventure Path